This chapter traces the offshoring of work from the United States to India as it occurred at one company. It considers the types of work being moved and the labor conditions under which they are ...
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This chapter traces the offshoring of work from the United States to India as it occurred at one company. It considers the types of work being moved and the labor conditions under which they are performed. While the complexity of services offered from India is increasing, there are presently limits to how high subsidiaries and subcontractors will move up the so-called value ladder. That is, they depend on standardized work for the bulk of their revenues. This translates into extreme levels of work rationalization, or the Taylorization of information work, and consequently, high turnover. The chapter also emphazies two points: first, the Indian outsourcing industry is not terribly innovative; second, Indian workers are innocent of the knowledge of what to do and must be told. It argues that outsourcing workers do not take “ownership” of their work for a variety of reasons beyond an ingrained lack of initiative.Less

The Rules of the Game

Shehzad Nadeem

Published in print: 2011-02-06

This chapter traces the offshoring of work from the United States to India as it occurred at one company. It considers the types of work being moved and the labor conditions under which they are performed. While the complexity of services offered from India is increasing, there are presently limits to how high subsidiaries and subcontractors will move up the so-called value ladder. That is, they depend on standardized work for the bulk of their revenues. This translates into extreme levels of work rationalization, or the Taylorization of information work, and consequently, high turnover. The chapter also emphazies two points: first, the Indian outsourcing industry is not terribly innovative; second, Indian workers are innocent of the knowledge of what to do and must be told. It argues that outsourcing workers do not take “ownership” of their work for a variety of reasons beyond an ingrained lack of initiative.

In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and ...
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In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant time zone. This book chronicles the rise of a workforce for whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process, it reveals the complications of hybrid lives and presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization carries as many downsides as advantages. The book suggests that the relatively high wages in the outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators. These young Indian workers indulge in American-style shopping binges at glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic trysts at exurban cafés. But while the high-tech outsourcing industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment. Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, the book demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges.Less

Dead Ringers : How Outsourcing Is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves

Shehzad Nadeem

Published in print: 2011-02-06

In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant time zone. This book chronicles the rise of a workforce for whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process, it reveals the complications of hybrid lives and presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization carries as many downsides as advantages. The book suggests that the relatively high wages in the outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators. These young Indian workers indulge in American-style shopping binges at glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic trysts at exurban cafés. But while the high-tech outsourcing industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment. Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, the book demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges.

This book explores the paradoxical effects of globalization on young Indians employed in the outsourcing industry: they are reaping the benefits of the corporate search for cut-rate labor but also ...
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This book explores the paradoxical effects of globalization on young Indians employed in the outsourcing industry: they are reaping the benefits of the corporate search for cut-rate labor but also shouldering the weight of the global restructuring of work. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in India and the United States, the book highlights the cyclical humiliations and joys of life under transnational capitalism by focusing on factors such as managerial styles, workplace culture, and family and social relations. It argues that while Indian workers receive relatively high wages (in India), they are also subject to what Karl Marx called the “dull compulsion of economic relations,” and the forms of discipline and surveillance issuing thereof. It also considers the culture of the economy and the economy of culture: the strictures and structures by which social life and human creativity are hedged.Less

Introduction

Shehzad Nadeem

Published in print: 2011-02-06

This book explores the paradoxical effects of globalization on young Indians employed in the outsourcing industry: they are reaping the benefits of the corporate search for cut-rate labor but also shouldering the weight of the global restructuring of work. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in India and the United States, the book highlights the cyclical humiliations and joys of life under transnational capitalism by focusing on factors such as managerial styles, workplace culture, and family and social relations. It argues that while Indian workers receive relatively high wages (in India), they are also subject to what Karl Marx called the “dull compulsion of economic relations,” and the forms of discipline and surveillance issuing thereof. It also considers the culture of the economy and the economy of culture: the strictures and structures by which social life and human creativity are hedged.

Chapter 6 focuses on the connections between IT and the middle class, exploring processes of class consolidation and reshuffling that have been set in motion by the advent of the software outsourcing ...
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Chapter 6 focuses on the connections between IT and the middle class, exploring processes of class consolidation and reshuffling that have been set in motion by the advent of the software outsourcing industry. Viewing ‘middle-classness’ as a meaningful social identity, it explores several dimensions of class restructuring in post-liberalization India, especially the reworking of the intersections between class, caste, gender, and work. The fracturing of the middle class has produced diverse dissonances and disjunctures, which frame the mobility strategies of actors and contestations over social value. After describing the social composition of the IT workforce, the chapter examines the strategies of class distinction deployed by IT professionals, who form a visible fraction of the ‘new middle class’. It also traces the diverse lives of ‘Indian culture’ and middle class identity as mobile IT professionals pursue their projects of self-development and social mobility in a transnational social field.Less

Codes of Class

Carol Upadhya

Published in print: 2016-07-07

Chapter 6 focuses on the connections between IT and the middle class, exploring processes of class consolidation and reshuffling that have been set in motion by the advent of the software outsourcing industry. Viewing ‘middle-classness’ as a meaningful social identity, it explores several dimensions of class restructuring in post-liberalization India, especially the reworking of the intersections between class, caste, gender, and work. The fracturing of the middle class has produced diverse dissonances and disjunctures, which frame the mobility strategies of actors and contestations over social value. After describing the social composition of the IT workforce, the chapter examines the strategies of class distinction deployed by IT professionals, who form a visible fraction of the ‘new middle class’. It also traces the diverse lives of ‘Indian culture’ and middle class identity as mobile IT professionals pursue their projects of self-development and social mobility in a transnational social field.